


Torch: Weekly Challenge 1: Childhood Memory (Aux Crew)

by Cider_Tim



Series: Weekly Writing [1]
Category: Shield of Tomorrow (Webseries), Star Trek
Genre: Childhood Memories, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 19:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13817940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cider_Tim/pseuds/Cider_Tim
Summary: A Starfleet officer reflects on a defining childhood moment while preparing for a new assignment.





	Torch: Weekly Challenge 1: Childhood Memory (Aux Crew)

Barlex packed the last of his gear into the personnel cargo cases that would accompany him on his journey to the Sally Ride. He had read in a briefing that recently the ship had lost crew in a skirmish with Romulans and his posting there would be as one of the replacements.  
Barlex stowed the case and picked up his travel bag and his tool kit. Each ship had tools aboard, but Barlex was always partial to his own. Specifically, the plasma torch.  
When Barlex was ten, living on his home world of Denobula, he loved running through the farm that his very large family worked. He was the second son of the second marriage for both his mother and father and felt a little bashful in the crowd. His father, Garex, and his mother’s first husband, Tarreign, both worked on the farm. Tarreign was a horticulture specialist and Garex was the head machinist maintaining the systems.  
Barlex would often follow his father to work and enjoyed watching his father working on all the mechanical equipment. Head in the clouds and wandering, Barlex would look through each piece of equipment and study how each component fit together. The young boy could follow a “flow” of how each piece worked with and fed into each other. Hours would pass and often end with his father calling for him, in an effort to find where is middle son had gone.  
Garex would draw circuits diagrams with issues and see which of his children could solve it first. Barlex knew the answer before his siblings but was always too shy to speak up. Watching his siblings take initiative, he would often feel jealous of them.  
One day, his father was working on a anit-grav tiller that was turning the soil unevenly. When he had to go and tend to a broken Hydrator in the field. Barlex sat there alone with the tiller and started to look it over. Barlex started measuring the tiller deck and found that a support coupler had developed a break that was dragging down one side of the deck. The ten-year-old boy grabbed some crates to support and level the deck, thinking to himself that this was his chance to show initiative. He then grabbed the Plasma torch. He had watched his father work with the torch many times and copied his movements, wearing all the safety gear Garex would have on while working with the torch.  
Tarreign then walked into the shop to see Barlex stand in front of repaired tiller in oversized goggles, smock, and still holding the plasma torch.  
“It…it was broken. It’s fixed now…” Barlex’s small voice sheepishly said.  
Tarreign looked at the tiller and back at the boy who was putting the torch down. “So, it is.” Tareeign smiled and Barlex smiled back.  
The next day, Tarreign gave Barlex his own tools, now father and son worked on the equipment together. When Garex would quiz his children on circuits, Barlex began to answer first.  
Grown and preparing for a new journey aboard an Intrepid Class Starship, Barlax gripped the aged Plasma Torch that Tarreign had given him that day.  
He was ready. He put the torch in the kit and walked to the transport deck.  
A Denobulan filled with confidence and initiative.


End file.
